• The fair girl sits alone, surrounded by pure white. A gale ruffles toffee colored hair and makes ginger eyes blink.
    “Why didn’t I just leave when I had the chance?” she sighed. She looked around at the snow, and then glanced to the evergreens in the distance that huddled together for warmth. Closing her eyes, she remembered begging her older brother for just a few moments alone when they went to visit their eldest brother’s grave. Thinking she heard footsteps and saw someone, she followed them into this clearing. Now, half an hour later, she was on her own in the cold.
    The fiery sunset was beautiful, but offered her no more heat than it had already given, which was minimal.
    “If only I hadn’t been such a fool, doing something as silly as wrapping my scarf around his tombstone. Then I might not be freezing so much. I’m too grown to be acting like that.” The already soft voice had shrunken to barely a whisper. “But I didn’t want him to be cold.”
    Her eyes were forced to adjust to first twilight, then a moonless night. She slowly shook her head. She knew she shouldn’t just sit in the snow, but walking out into the forest would get her even more lost and practically obliterate her chance of ever being found.